How Magento Product Recommendations Help You Sell More

Your online store has great products, but long lists and endless scrolling push customers away faster than they can press “add to cart.” So, it’s no surprise that your shopping cart abandonment rate keeps growing – clients wholose interest choose your rivals instead.

Believe us, busy shoppers don’t have time to scroll through dozens of pages. What they need are instant, personalized product suggestions that actually make sense. When they can’t quickly find the right products, your conversions, average order value, and repeat purchases suffer.

In this case, we can confidently say that the Magento recommendation engine changes the situation. First, it automatically suggests relevant items to each shopper based on their behavior, search, and purchases. Second, it analyzes what people browse on your ecommerce website and displays tailored banners and related products. As a result, shoppers instantly see your upsells and cross-sells that match their interests.

So, everyone wins. Your customers get a faster, more intuitive shopping experience with less time wasted on searching. And you receive more clicks, more orders, and more revenue coming in.

An interesting fact for you: in 2023, Harbor Freight became one of the most visited Magento stores in the U.S., largely thanks to a well-implemented product recommendation system.

So, if you want the same, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to find out everything about Magento product recommendations and how to use them to meet shoppers’ needs and boost your revenues.

What Types of Product Recommendations Does Magento Offer?

The advantage of the Magento ecommerce platform is that it offers different types of product recommendations for your business. That’s great because you can implement exactly what suits you and can mix and match various options based on what your shoppers need.

Related products

Related products are items that go together or complement what a shopper is viewing. For example, you visit the ASUS store to buy a laptop. You’ll likely see not only the model and brand you’re interested in but also alternatives from other brands with comparable parameters.

The value of this type of Magento product recommendations is that you can place them on product pages. So, this helps shoppers add useful extras without digging around.

Recommended for you

This type of Magento product recommendation is fully personalized. Adobe Commerce (with Adobe Sensei AI) analyzes a shopper’s clicks, behavior, and purchases to suggest products they’re likely to love.

“Recommended for you” works great on homepages, product pages, and even category pages because it keeps people exploring. It creates that little moment of “Oh wow, this store actually gets me.”

For example, the online store Misguided uses personalized product suggestions to show items that match each shopper’s style. It takes into account what people bought before, what categories they click on, and what they browse the most.

Bought this, bought that

This type of Magento product recommendation involves bought-together items based on past sales or products that pair well. For example, when you buy sports shoes, you receive suggestions for items that match them like a suit, a bag, or socks. This is a great way to increase cart size, improve customer experience, as well as boost sales.

For example, this option works great on Nike’s platform, where the product recommendation engine picks other items in relevant colors and styles.

Trending products

Trending products show what people are buying right now. Adobe Commerce uses real-time data: clicks, purchases, and views to highlight items that are most appealing to your audience. The list updates continuously, so shoppers always see what’s hot at the moment.

You can place this block on the homepage or product pages. It works well because it adds urgency and gives visitors a quick snapshot of what others love today.

For example, Coca-Cola uses a “Now Trending” section under selected products to grab attention and encourage shoppers to buy.

Who viewed this also viewed

This Magento recommendation shows products that other shoppers often look at together. For example, if many people who viewed Fred Perry’s knitted cardigan also checked a skirt, the system would suggest both.

You can place these suggestions on product pages. It helps your customers find alternatives and discover popular items swiftly.

Visual similarity recommendations

Magento uses artificial intelligence to analyze the visual details of the item a customer is viewing. Based on that, it recommends similar products that match their taste. This works especially well in fashion or home décor categories, where appearance influences the buying decision.

You can place Magento producer recommendations on the product page, so shoppers see alternatives they might like. It makes browsing easier, helps them compare options, and gently guides them toward a purchase.

Cross-sells

Cross-sells are extra products shown on the shopping cart page. They help customers add a few more useful items before checkout. For example, if someone has a camera in their cart, the system may suggest lenses.

You place these Magento product recommendations right on the cart page. It’s an easy way to increase order value with add-ons that actually make sense.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to set up Magento product recommendations for your online store. You can use a single type or mix several; it’s up to you. The key is to test what works best for your customers and drives conversions.

What Native Product Recommendation Features Does Magento Offer

Magento offers a variety of native product recommendation features that can help you boost sales and make shopping easier for your customers. Depending on your ecommerce website’s size and technical setup, you can choose from basic tools to more flexible options. Let’s take a closer look at each feature so you can see what fits your store best.

Adobe Commerce capabilities

Adobe Commerce uses Adobe Sensei, an AI engine, to provide smart product recommendations. It’s a tool that uses artificial intelligence to suggest products to shoppers based on their behavior, browsing, and buying patterns.

Features:

• Offers over 13 types of recommendations, including Trending Products, Most Viewed, Customers Who Bought This Also Bought, Visual Similarity, Recently Viewed or Purchased, and Recommended for You
• Uses a visual similarity engine to recommend products based on images, not just text
• Includes an admin dashboard to track clicks, conversion rates, and performance
• Allows A/B testing and optimization of recommendations
• Works as a SaaS solution via Adobe’s cloud, and no need to manage AI models or data processing

Advantages:

• Personalized product suggestions that match shopper interests
• Helps increase sales, clicks, and engagement
• Automatic updates, scalable, and secure
• Perfect for medium to large stores that want data-driven personalization

Limitations:

• Requires Adobe Commerce subscription
• More complex than basic Magento Open Source tools
• Best suited for stores with enough traffic and data to benefit from AI insights

Magento Open Source capabilities

Magento Open Source has basic product recommendation tools that help merchants suggest items to shoppers. It guides customers toward related products, upsells, and cross-sells based on behavioral data.

Key features:

• Manual configuration of related products, upsells, and cross-sells
• Placement on product pages and shopping cart pages

Advantages:

• Simple and easy to use for small catalogs
• Helps display complementary products and boost average order value
• No extra AI or advanced setup required

Limitations:

• Time-consuming manual setup for big product catalogs
• No advanced personalization based on shopper behavior
• Cannot recommend items based on images or aesthetics
• Best suited for merchants with smaller catalogs

This option is great if you want an easy way to show product recommendations. You can display related items, upsells, and cross-sells without using artificial intelligence  or complicated tools. It’s simple, works well for small stores, and doesn’t need a big investment.

Headless and PWA support

Headless and PWA setups let you use Magento product recommendations even if your store runs on a custom frontend. This means you can keep your design flexible while still showing personalized suggestions to shoppers.

Magento (both Open Source and Adobe Commerce) delivers product recommendations through APIs. So even if your frontend is built with React, Vue, or any other modern framework, you can still connect recommendation blocks without issues.

Features:

• You can fetch recommendations through REST or GraphQL APIs
• Works with PWAs (personalized suggestions on mobile and desktop)
• Keeps recommendations consistent across all touchpoints: your ecommerce website, mobile app, or even in-store kiosks

Advantages:

• Gives you full freedom to design any UI while keeping smart product recommendations running in the background
• Makes the shopping experience faster and more modern, especially on mobile

Limitations:

• Requires some development work to connect APIs
• Not ideal for teams without frontend resources

Magento offers flexible product recommendation options for every type of ecommerce business. If you’re running a small store, the Open Source features are enough to power simple but effective suggestions.

Mid-to-large ecommerce websites can take it further with Adobe Commerce’s built-in AI, which delivers smarter, more personalized recommendations. And if you use a custom frontend, you can still provide intelligent suggestions thanks to Magento’s support for headless setups and PWAs.

Choose the approach that matches your store’s size and goals and turn everyday browsing into confident buying.

Which Magento Product Recommendation Extensions Should You Try?

When your online store starts to scale, Magento product recommendations can help you show the right products to the right people. And if you don’t have the time or budget to build a fully custom solution, using Magento extensions is a great way to get started.

Below, you’ll find two Adobe Commerce recommendation extensions that can help you show the right products to the right people. Let’s break them down so you can choose the one that fits your ecommerce website.

Both extensions solve the same problem, just in different ways. LandOfCoder is a good choice if you want something simple and more manual. Webkul works better if you want intelligent automation and smarter AI-driven suggestions.

Pick the extension that aligns with your goals, the size of your catalog, and how personalized you want the shopping experience to be.

Native Product Recommendation Features Available on Magento

Now that you know about the types of Magento product extensions, the next decision is whether to go with standard Magento product recommendations or AI-powered suggestions. Both help shoppers find the right items, but they work in very different ways.

Magento product recommendation extensions

Adobe Commerce extensions use simple, rule-based logic. You manually set up related products, upsells, and cross-sells. Every shopper sees the same suggestions. They are easy to install, cost less, and work well for small stores with catalogs. But customization is limited. Extensions rarely support visual similarity, advanced analytics, or real-time updates.

AI-powered suggestions

AI-powered recommendations, on the other hand, analyze customer behavior, browsing history, and purchases to suggest items automatically. Each shopper gets a tailored experience. Artificial intelligence can show visually similar items, run A/B tests, and provide real-time performance dashboards. It works across ecommerce websites, mobile apps, and headless setups.

In short, Magento extensions are perfect if you want something simple and low-cost. AI-powered recommendations work when you need personalized product suggestions, deeper insights, and a more engaging customerexperience. Both can increase sales and make shopping faster and easier for your audience.

How to Build a Strong Product Recommendation Strategy

If you want your Magento ecommerce website to feel smarter, more personal, and more helpful to shoppers, you need a solid recommendation strategy. It involves using the behavioral data, preparing it well, training an AI model that understands your customers, and delivering suggestions that actually make sense. Here are our tips on how to do it:

• Step 1: Bring the right data together
  Start with the information that matters: what customers browse, what they buy, how they move through your store, and what you already know about your products. When you aggregate all of this into one place, it will become easier to identify typical behavior patterns.
• Step 2: Clean and prepare everything
  Raw data is messy. Before AI can use it, you need to transform it. You need to remove duplicates, correct mistakes, and make sure every record follows the same structure.
• Step 3: Train the AI model
  You feed an AI model with cleaned data and let it learn. AI studies what people search, how products relate to each other, and what signals lead to a purchase. Over time, the AI model gets better at predicting what each shopper might want next.
• Step 4: Show real recommendations in the store
  Finally, you plug the trained model into your Magento storefront. Now your customers start seeing suggestions that actually feel useful: “Recommended for you,” “You may also like,” or “Frequently bought together.”

A strong Adobe Commerce product recommendation strategy is based on data, preparation, and artificial intelligence that learns from your shoppers. When all four steps work together, you create a store that feels personal, intuitive, and far more likely to convert browsing into buying.

Final Thoughts

Magento product recommendations are a great way to boost sales and increase revenue, but there’s no “one perfect strategy” that fits every store. Each audience behaves differently. That’s why you need to understand how your customers browse, what they click on, and what motivates them to buy, and then test what works in your case.

At Forbytes, we specialize in Magento development. We build online stores that meet technical standards and real market needs. With our certified developers, you can improve your store’s performance, deliver a smoother shopping experience, and increase customer satisfaction. `

If you need support, reach out to the Forbytes team. We’ll help you build a Magento store that attracts the right audience and keeps them coming back.